January 24, 2013
Women in Combat: History, Aided by Technology The Pentagon’s decision to end its ban on women-in-combat — a change announced, formally, this afternoon — is simply a decision whose time, in many, many ways, has come. But it is also, importantly, a decision that technological advances have made easier: more sensible, more practical, more impermeable to objection. While some will still make social and cultural arguments against women serving on the front lines — most of which will boil down to the idea that it’s hard for “bands of brothers” to coalesce when sisters are part of the equation — most other objections are now, or will soon be, preempted. And that’s in part because of technology. Read more. [Image: David Kamm, U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center]

Women in Combat: History, Aided by Technology

The Pentagon’s decision to end its ban on women-in-combat — a change announced, formally, this afternoon — is simply a decision whose time, in many, many ways, has come. But it is also, importantly, a decision that technological advances have made easier: more sensible, more practical, more impermeable to objection. While some will still make social and cultural arguments against women serving on the front lines — most of which will boil down to the idea that it’s hard for “bands of brothers” to coalesce when sisters are part of the equation — most other objections are now, or will soon be, preempted. And that’s in part because of technology.

Read more. [Image: David Kamm, U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center]

3:25pm
(Notes: 167)
  
Filed under: Women Military Combat Pentagon Technology History 
March 26, 2012

Why Can’t the Air Force Build an Affordable Plane?

By all accounts, the Air Force’s track record of making bombers the country can afford is dismal. The B-1 program was cancelled mid-stream by the Carter administration after its cost doubled, then revived under President Reagan. The B-2 grew so costly in the early 1990s that the Pentagon ended up buying just a fifth of the aircraft originally planned. 

The B-2s are actually not used much now, partly because few targets justify risking aircraft that cost $3 billion apiece in today’s dollars, and partly because their flights by some estimates cost$135,000 per hour — almost double that of any other military airplane.

The Air Force says the new bomber is slated to cost roughly $55 billion, or about $550 million a plane — less than a quarter of the price of the B-2. If costs rise, “we don’t get a program,” Air Force chief of staff Gen. Norton Schwartz recently told reporters, citing a 2009 warning by then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, an airpower skeptic, as Gates cancelled an earlier attempt to build a new bomber.

One of the skeptics is Tom Christie, the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester from 2001 until his retirement in 2005. He says that if $550 million per copy is the target, “you’re talking $2 billion by the time they build the damn thing …. How many times [have] we been through this with bombers? And look where we end up.”

“Besides, what do we need it for?”

Read more. [Image: Center for Public Integrity]

11:29am
(Notes: 151)
  
Filed under: Military War Air Force Pentagon Longreads 
August 2, 2011
"As social media play increasingly large roles in fomenting unrest in countries like Egypt and Iran, the military wants systems to be able to detect and track the spread of ideas both quickly and on a broad scale. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is soliciting innovative proposals to help build what would be, at its most basic level, an Internet meme tracker."

— Pentagon Seeks a Few Good Social Networkers

(via markcoatney)

10:00am
(Notes: 85)
  
Filed under: Tumblr Pentagon All your cats are belong to U.S. 
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